This week is World Breastfeeding Week, and as a first time mom on my own breastfeeding journey, it really hits differently this year. In honor of the week, we’re rounding up more celebs who’ve been incredibly candid about breastfeeding, addressing how hard it can be (even with immense privilege and so many resources available to them), sharing stories that are honestly so relatable, normalizing feeding in public, and most importantly, acknowledging that a fed baby is a happy and healthy baby — there is no “right” way to feed, and everyone is on their own journey.
1. Blake Lively joked about how “the first Monday in May” looked a little different this year. Historically, that’s when she’d be attending the Met Gala, but this year, she shared a picture of her pumping breast milk for her newborn daughter who was born in February.
2. Mandy Moore has openly posted about her breastfeeding journeys with both her first son Gus and her younger son Ozzie. She has been particularly candid about struggling with clogged ducts and mastitis — inflammation in the breast which most commonly affects people who are breastfeeding.
3. Olivia Munn posted a super vulnerable video on Instagram about her struggles with breastfeeding, and when she had low milk supply, she tried several tricks to increase it — everything from trying different teas to seeing multiple lactation consultants to even hoping the pillow she used would make a difference, but it took a toll on her emotions.
4. Keke Palmer opened up about the feeling of becoming a new mom and realizing you don’t even know where to start when it comes to breastfeeding — her experience was trying to search for tips on the internet and then ultimately finding a lactation consultant who helped her tremendously.
“[People] make it seem like, ‘Oh, this is natural and the whole breast is best gag,’ and you know, it ends up making you feel like shit…it’s like tying your shoe,” she told People, “Tying your shoes is easy, but you had to learn how to tie your shoes. So it becomes easier. In the beginning, your fingers were like butter fingers — and that’s the same thing with breastfeeding. It isn’t that easy. And if it is for you, wonderful. But I think more often than not, it’s difficult.”
5. Halsey has shared a number of photos from their breastfeeding journey, specifically normalizing feeding in public places.
6. Jodie Turner-Smith discussed how she had originally just wanted to try to breastfeed her daughter Janie for six months, but ultimately ended up on a 2-year breastfeeding journey.
7. Ashley Graham opened up about how even though she exclusively breastfed her firstborn, she decided to stop breastfeeding her twins because it was no longer working for her.
“With my first kid, I was like, ‘I could only breastfeed. This is the right way,'” Ashley said on The Daily Show. “Then I had the twins, and I was like, ‘I’m not doing this.’ This is not working here… This is a lot of work.” The mom of three ultimately chose to formula feed her twins. “These little guys are so strong and so happy, so I don’t think we should be telling people how they should be feeding their kids.”
8. Serena Williams opened up about her decision to stop breastfeeding her daughter Olympia at 6 months, which she made for the sake of her tennis career.
In the documentary series Being Serena, Serena opened up about how she wouldn’t have been able to return to her tennis form if she continued to breastfeed. “What I’ve learned through the experience: Everybody is different, every person is different, every physical body is different,” she said. “For my body, it didn’t work. No matter how much I worked out, no matter how much I did, it didn’t work for me.” Serena ultimately ended up breastfeeding Olympia for six months. “Once I got to six months, I felt good about it. Then it was just emotionally letting go. I literally sat Olympia in my arms, I talked to her, we prayed about it. I told her, ‘Look, I’m going to stop. Mommy has to do this.’ I cried a little bit, not as much as I thought I was. She was fine.”
9. Kristen Bell discussed her struggles with clogged ducts and mastitis, even sharing a particularly harrowing experience involving her husband Dax Shepard sucking a clogged duct out for her.
10. Kerry Washington opened up about something breastfeeding and pumping parents know all too well — the need to stop and pump while out and about. One part that might be a little, well, less relatable to us normies? One time she needed to stop to pump at a White House party under President Barack Obama.
11. Katherine Schwarzenegger posted about breastfeeding while her daughter Eloise was going through a growth spurt — a time when babies tend to want to feed a lot more frequently or cluster feed.
“Which means this mama needs a jug of water…at all times,” she wrote.
12. Ashley Greene shared that breastfeeding her daughter Kingsley Rainn was “one of the worst experiences” in the beginning and revealed she had trouble with latching and using a pump flange that was the wrong size for her breasts.
“I thought breastfeeding was a natural part of the progression of having a child,” she told People. “I just assumed things would kick in, and it really didn’t. It was mentally such a struggle. We want nothing more than to have this blissful, beautiful connection with your child through breastfeeding. And when that doesn’t happen, it’s very difficult not to blame yourself.”
13. Cardi B shared some sweet moments after feeding her son Wave last year, which isn’t the first time she’s shared publicly. Of course, Cardi famously was seen breastfeeding in her 2018 music video “Money.”
14. Heather Rae El Moussa shared much of her early breastfeeding journey on her Instagram stories, explaining that she loves breastfeeding and the feeling of being skin-to-skin, but that it was “definitely harder than I thought.”
“Hard, but very gratifying. I love it,” she wrote. “So I’m sure that I’ve been having the same journeys that you all went through, so I want to tell you guys my journeys and my strengths with everything, some of the challenges I’ve been having… But, I love it. I love skin-to-skin. I love breastfeeding.”
15. Ilana Glazer opened up about having a newfound appreciation for her breasts since being a mom, and talked about how she started supplementing with formula when her supply dropped — which was scary because it happened to be around the same time as the formula shortage last year.
“So far, we’ve been lucky because my local grocery store has always had it in stock, and my daughter is on the cusp of drinking regular milk,” she told Parents. “Still, it’s scary.”
16. Finally, Chrissy Teigen opened up about her breastfeeding journey with her kids, saying that she was lucky because Luna, Miles, and Esti all latched immediately, but she also supplemented with formula.
“I mean, Luna and Miles are thriving, and they’re great, and they were fed, and the most important thing is a fed baby. I used to be so scared, like, ‘Oh, my God, they’re not getting milk.’ I used to try to order donor milk online and freak myself out about everything,” she told People. “Not this time.”